THE TRANSFORMATIVE ROLE OF PLACE ATTACHMENT IN CONVERTING SUSTAINABILITY PERCEPTIONS INTO ACTIVE TOURIST ADVOCACY

While a significant body of literature exists on sustainable tourism, little is known about the psychological mechanisms by which perceptions of sustainability are translated into advocacy behaviors. The affective and identity-based pathways that connect sustainability to proactive advocacy have been poorly theorized, as the majority of the literature has predicted advocacy from direct cognition rather than affective mediators. Further, advocacy has been under-researched as a dependent variable compared to revisit intention, even though it is higher up the loyalty hierarchy and represents more valuable behavioral outcomes for destination marketing and management. The current study aims to address these critical gaps by examining the mediating role of place attachment in the sustainability-advocacy relationship within community-based tourism contexts. It developed and empirically tested the comprehensive hypothesis that place attachment was the core psychological mechanism that transformed perceptions of sustainable development into advocacy behaviors through both emotional and functional pathways. Thus, the study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design with 377 tourists in the Egyptian community-based tourism sector, using structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships among perceived sustainability dimensions, place attachment components, and advocacy intentions. Results demonstrated that perceived sustainability is significantly associated with place attachment, which fully mediates its effect on advocacy intention for economic and cultural sustainability dimensions, while partially mediating environmental sustain ability effects. These findings extend theoretical understanding by demonstrating that economic and cultural sustainability require complete psychological transformation through place attachment before influencing advocacy, whereas environmental sustainability operates through both affective bonding and direct normative pathways.